Human Rights Committee

The Human Rights Committee is a United Nations body of 18 experts that meets three times a year to consider the five-yearly reports submitted by UN member states on their compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Committee is one of seven UN-linked human rights treaty bodies.

States that have signed the First Optional Protocol (currently 104 countries) have agreed to allow persons within the member state to obtain an opinion from the Committee regarding violations of that Covenant. For those countries, the Human Rights Committee can thus function as a mechanism for the international redress of human rights abuses, similar to the regional mechanisms afforded by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights or the European Court of Human Rights. The First Optional Protocol came into effect on 23 March 1976. The Second Optional Protocol, in force since 11 July 1991, addresses the abolition of the death penalty and has been ratified by 53 states.

The Human Rights Committee should not be confused with the more high-profile Commission on Human Rights, a Charter-based mechanism, or its replacement, the Human Rights Council. Whereas the Commission on Human Rights was a political forum where states debated all human rights concerns (since June 2006, replaced by the Council in that function), the Human Rights Committee is a treaty-based mechanism where a group of experts examines reports and rules on individual communications pertaining only to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It remains disputed whether the Human Rights Committee's in principle non-binding final views qualify as decisions of a quasi-judicial body or simply constitute authoritative interpretations on the merits of the cases brought before them for the members of the Optional Protocol of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The members of the Human Rights Committee, who must be "of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights", are elected by the member states but on an individual basis, not as representatives of their countries. They serve four-year terms, with one-half of their number elected every second year at the General Assembly.

Members

External links

* [http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/index.htm Human Rights Committee]
* [http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights]